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wyntir_knightTitle: The Devil You Know
Series: G1 universe, focusing on Original characters
Rating: R
Summary: In the early days of the civil war on Cybertron, Sentinel Prime authorized several refugee vessels to take Neutrals away from the planet in hopes that they could start peaceful colonies where they would be safe. Many of these refugees were never heard from again; lost to us through time and distance. But history does record the fate of one of the vessels. The Stormchaser was three orns away from its destination when it was shot down by Decepticons in an act of cowardice and deceit. There were no survivors. That is what history tells us. But in this case, history is wrong.
Author's Note: Day eight and 30% done. Today I hit my first hitch, however. I completed chapter four and realized that I'd written the events of chapter four and five in one chapter. I could have just posted as is, but since I'm after word count and I want to keep somewhat to my outline, I decided to split them and fill out the resulting holes. You may call it padding, I call it creative pre-editing.
15003 / 50000 words. 30% done!
Chapter 4
Arclight worked quietly on Cobalt. The Autobot remained stubbornly silent, glaring accusingly at Waverunner as he spoke with Windsaber. Cobalt’s injuries were surprisingly minor. Windsaber had succeeded in causing the most pain possible without fully disabling the Autobot. Her own internal repair systems were working diligently on the damage caused to her by Strobe. Each of his punches has landed painfully, but it was like a turbofox kit toying with prey. The intent had been to force submission, not to kill. She would have to keep a close eye on both of these Decepticons. They were not ones to underestimate or take for granted. Updraft on the other hand was a bit on an enigma. He seemed to wish no harm on anyone; an odd state of mind for someone who sported the Decepticon sigil.
Arclight completed her work on Strobe before darkness fell fully, and just as the Decepticons succeeded in creating the first of the energon cubes. Syzygy distributed these carefully. The cubes were a strange pink tinged with green and brown, giving it a muddy appearance. The quality was weak, the taste foul, but it was fuel and none of them were in any position to complain.
“It’s getting too dark,” Windsaber said. “I want all of you to conserve as much energy as possible for tomorrow, so I want you, you, and you to go out into the forest and collect some wood. We’re going to build a fire.”
“A fire?” Waveruner asked as the appointed neutrals moved out into the forest.
“Yes. Fire. The combustion of organic material. It makes heat and, more important, it makes light,” Strobe replied, sarcasm lacing his voice.
“I know what fire is,” Waverunner replied patiently. “I just don’t see the need for it. It would make far more sense to have those who can provide the light on rotating shifts.”
“Then everyone wouldn’t be at maximum capacity for tomorrow’s trek,” Windsaber replied.
“Where are we going anyways?” Waverunner asked.
“We scanned a city on the way down. We’re headed there,” Windsaber replied.
“What? Wouldn’t it make more sense to find the rest of the ship? We might find fuel and escape shuttles. And more important, we might find the comm room,” Waverunner argued.
“We are going to the city. The decision has been made and won’t be changed. Am I making myself clear?” Windsaber asked.
“I … yes, of course,” Waverunner replied, looking chastised.
“And Waverunner,” Windsaber said as the elder was turning away, “don’t make me rethink our arrangement. You would not like the results.”
Waverunner simply nodded and moved away.
For a long time, the assembled were silent, listening to the wind in the trees and the strange, alien noises or organic creatures as they moved through the woods. It was eerie, and it was frightening. Everyone seemed on edge, jumping at the slightest noise. From the other side of the camp, Arclight could hear engines begin to rev with fear, and cooling systems begin to turn on.
Suddenly there was a commotion in the woods. The sound of overclocking engines and running feet. The Decepticons stood in formation, weapons raised, prepared for battle with military precision.
The battle was unneeded, however. The three mechs sent off for wood fell out of the forest at a run. They looked about the assembled wildly before dropping the collected wood in the middle of the clearing.
“There’s something out there!” a young blue mech said.
“Yes, the woods and the organic beings that inhabit it,” Windsaber said, sounding bored.
“No, not that!” a yellow femme argued. “There’s something evil out there! It didn’t want us to take the wood.”
“I heard the trees scream at us,” a small orange mech said in a tiny voice.
“Did you now?” Strobe asked. Then shaking his head he added, “And that would be why you all need to be governed. You’re all a bunch of sparklets completely incapable of ruling yourselves because you’re too afraid of the dark. Are you going to tell me next that you saw the shifter mech hiding under your berth?”
“I’m not making it up,” the orange mech said quietly. “I know what I heard and it was real. There’s something dangerous out there.”
“No, there’s something dangerous in here. And that’d be us,” Strobe growled, motioning to the Decepticons. “Now enough with this talk of monsters! Get the fire going or I’ll show you exactly who it is that you need to fear!”
The three neutrals stood stock still for a moment before rushing to recollect the wood and began to work to light the fire.
Arclight watched this all angrily. Cobalt noticed her look.
“You didn’t think that they were actually going to fight back, did you?” Cobalt asked in a whisper.
“I had hoped they might,” Arclight replied.
Cobalt only snorted indelicately.
“Neutrals don’t fight,” he said. “They let others do the work for them and then they gather the rewards of the resulting leadership. Unless the Decepticons win. In that case, they simply whine about the injustice of their pathetic little lives.”
“You underestimate them,” Arclight said.
“Do I? Look around you. Do these look like people who are willing to fight for their freedom? No. Neutrals are all like. They will never defend themselves.”
“That’s a generalization. I’ll fight for what I believe in, and I’m a Neutral,” Arclight replied archly.
“No you’re not,” Cobalt said. “You pretend to be unaligned, but when it comes down to it, you’re an Autobot. You just haven’t been forced to realize it yet.”
“You don’t know me. No matter how much you pretend. You don’t know me at all,” Arclight said as she stood to move back among the colonists.
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that,” Cobalt said quietly. “Keep telling yourself and you might actually manage to delude yourself into believing it.”
Arclight tried her best to ignore his words, but slowly they started to work their way into her processor. She had sworn to remain impartial in the war. As a medic she could not deny treatment to someone based on their faction. If it came to it, she would repair any of these Decepticons as quickly as she would anyone else. They were pretty words, but she was not convincing herself. These Decepticons were monsters, but were they really any worse than Cobalt? Her hand moved up to stroke the dents on her throat where Cobalt had grabbed her. She had repaired the Autobot. Would she really do the same for Strobe? After all, she had made no attempt to save Killzone.
Her introspection was interrupted by a crash and a scream from out in the woods. Silence descended on the group and then all hell broke loose as the sound of laser fire filled the air.
The Decepticons all moved as one, creating a triangle perimeter, weapons pointed at the woods. The Neutrals huddled together in fear staring out into the dark, petrified of whatever was out there.
The noise ended as quickly as it had started and the forest was plunged into a silence far deeper than it had been before. Even the organic creatures were quiet, and it was as if the whole of the world was holding it’s breath.
“Strobe! Updraft! I want you both to make a tour of the perimeter. Make sure there’s nothing out there,” Windsaber ordered.
“Nothing out there?!” Twostrike asked, a hysterical note creeping into his voice. “We just heard something out there! Those are probably our brothers! You need to find them!”
“No,” Windsabre said calmly, “the only thing that I need to do is defend this position. If there are other Neutrals out there then they’re on their own.”
“Yeah, but-” Twostrike began.
“There will be no argument from you,” Windsaber interrupted. “Unless, you’re telling me that you’d like to tour the extended perimeter?”
“I … no, sir,” Twostrike said, dropping his head in shame.
“I thought not,” Windsaber said before turning to Strobe and Updraft. “Take standard formation. Report back here if you find anything.”
“Aye, Sir!” they replied.
The two Decepticons turned and walked out into the woods, leaving Windsaber to defend the camp.
x-x-x
Strobe walked ahead of Updraft, his body stiff, his senses alert. They had completed two thirds of a circuit around the perimeter of the camp and had come across nothing. If the gunplay had indeed happened, it wasn’t from anywhere close to the camp.
“Do you think that the neutrals were telling the truth?” Updraft asked as they walked. “Do you really think that they saw something out here?”
Strobe stopped for a moment, turning back to look at Updraft, a look of surprise and disgust on his face.
“Are you really asking that question?” he asked as he continued to walk, “I mean, are you seriously considering the possibility that there’s a monster in the woods?”
“Well, no. Not monsters,” Updraft replied hesitantly. “But maybe this world isn’t as uninhabited as we figured.”
“It’s uninhabited. We didn’t pick up any life signs worth squat,” Strobe replied. “There was just the organic life, and that hardly matters.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Updraft said. He still sounded unconvinced, but he wasn’t about to continue the discussion. Instead he turned to his internal sensors. “We’re just about done the perimeter. Do we head back or should we make another run a bit further out?”
“We’ll just go back. There’s no point in straining ourselves over something that isn’t there,” Strobe replied. “The acoustics on this world are strange and those sounds could have come from anywhere. It wouldn’t surprise me if we were hearing something from many miles away.”
“Well, you’re the comm officer. I guess you’d know,” Updraft replied. “That’s it. We’re back where we started.”
“Good. I want to get back to where there’re people, even if they’re Neutral trash,” Strobe said. “This whole place creeps me out.”
“They’re not all trash,” Updraft argued. “Some of them have real potential.”
“Oh, like who? Twostrike? He was a good Decepticon once, but then he lost his nerve. He’s trash,” Strobe snorted.
“He was a Decepticon?” Updraft asked.
“I never knew him, but I sure as slag knew of him,” Strobe said angrily. “He cut and run during the battle of Sigma Bridge. He had forty infantry units relying on him for cover fire and he took off. They were decimated by a Guardian Robot.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that,” Updraft said softly.
“You’re too new. It’s hardly surprising,” Strobe replied. “Just remember, the Neutrals are that way for a reason. Either they can’t fight or they won’t. Either way, mechs like Twostrike are of no use to us.”
“I guess so. The thing is, I wasn’t thinking about him,” Updraft hedged.
“Oh, ho! You meant that medic femme! You’re sweet on her, are you?” Strobe laughed. “Yeah, I guess she is a fine specimen. Pit knows I sure wouldn’t mind stroking that, but she’s just a Neutral like the rest.”
“You’re disgusting,” Updraft said.
“Yeah, I am. But admit it, you want to get some ‘face time with her too,” Strobe said with a wicked snicker.
Updraft’s optics darkened to an embarrassed crimson. He shut his mouth, refusing to rise to Strobe’s bait. It was true that she was well put together, but there was more to it than that. She carried herself well. She had a fire in her that was entrancing. Of course that same fire would probably get him seriously hurt if he tried anything. He had never been much of a fighter, and he’d heard stories about what medics were capable of. He didn’t want to be on the receiving end on her wrath.
“Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?” Strobe asked, interrupting Updraft’s thoughts.
“Of course I’m sure. I’m a pilot. I never get lost.”
“Well, I think you got us lost. I don’t remember the trees being this close together before,” Strobe shot back.
“I’ll admit that things look a bit different, but I’m telling you, we’re headed on a direct path back to the camp!” Updraft argued.
Strobe turned on Updraft, his hands raised to shove the pilot violently, when screams and laser fire tore through the night.
“That came from the camp!” Updraft gasped.
He shoved past Strobe and ran in the direction he knew the camp was, the black and tan close on his trail. Together, heedless of the noise they were making, they crashed through the forest desperate to get to the battle they could still hear.
Suddenly, the night fell silent as a tomb, and the two Decepticons fell out of the forest and into a clearing. They looked about wildly, but there was no sign that the others had ever been here. Instead, right in the middle of the clearing where the fire should have been, stood a tall black menhir, intricately carved with ancient Cybertronian symbols.
“You did get us lost!” Strobe yelled accusingly.
“I did not! The camp is beyond this clearing,” Updraft replied as he approached the giant stone.
“You did too! We never passed through a clearing! You got us lost! In this slag-pit forest!”
Updraft ignored Strobe’s tirade, focusing instead on the menhir. It looked like any other giant stone that had been dragged out of the dirt, but the carvings on it were beautiful. Someone had taken a lot of time and effort to make this. It made no sense that it had been left in the middle of a forest like this. He walked around it slowly, taking in the writing, trying unsuccessfully to translate it. He reached the other side and saw something that made his fuel run cold.
Scrawled in mech fluid across the back of the stone were words written in a more modern Cybertronian slang. These he could translate without any difficulty.
“Beware the night. Watch the woods. Trust no one,” Updraft whispered as he read the words.
Series: G1 universe, focusing on Original characters
Rating: R
Summary: In the early days of the civil war on Cybertron, Sentinel Prime authorized several refugee vessels to take Neutrals away from the planet in hopes that they could start peaceful colonies where they would be safe. Many of these refugees were never heard from again; lost to us through time and distance. But history does record the fate of one of the vessels. The Stormchaser was three orns away from its destination when it was shot down by Decepticons in an act of cowardice and deceit. There were no survivors. That is what history tells us. But in this case, history is wrong.
Author's Note: Day eight and 30% done. Today I hit my first hitch, however. I completed chapter four and realized that I'd written the events of chapter four and five in one chapter. I could have just posted as is, but since I'm after word count and I want to keep somewhat to my outline, I decided to split them and fill out the resulting holes. You may call it padding, I call it creative pre-editing.
Arclight worked quietly on Cobalt. The Autobot remained stubbornly silent, glaring accusingly at Waverunner as he spoke with Windsaber. Cobalt’s injuries were surprisingly minor. Windsaber had succeeded in causing the most pain possible without fully disabling the Autobot. Her own internal repair systems were working diligently on the damage caused to her by Strobe. Each of his punches has landed painfully, but it was like a turbofox kit toying with prey. The intent had been to force submission, not to kill. She would have to keep a close eye on both of these Decepticons. They were not ones to underestimate or take for granted. Updraft on the other hand was a bit on an enigma. He seemed to wish no harm on anyone; an odd state of mind for someone who sported the Decepticon sigil.
Arclight completed her work on Strobe before darkness fell fully, and just as the Decepticons succeeded in creating the first of the energon cubes. Syzygy distributed these carefully. The cubes were a strange pink tinged with green and brown, giving it a muddy appearance. The quality was weak, the taste foul, but it was fuel and none of them were in any position to complain.
“It’s getting too dark,” Windsaber said. “I want all of you to conserve as much energy as possible for tomorrow, so I want you, you, and you to go out into the forest and collect some wood. We’re going to build a fire.”
“A fire?” Waveruner asked as the appointed neutrals moved out into the forest.
“Yes. Fire. The combustion of organic material. It makes heat and, more important, it makes light,” Strobe replied, sarcasm lacing his voice.
“I know what fire is,” Waverunner replied patiently. “I just don’t see the need for it. It would make far more sense to have those who can provide the light on rotating shifts.”
“Then everyone wouldn’t be at maximum capacity for tomorrow’s trek,” Windsaber replied.
“Where are we going anyways?” Waverunner asked.
“We scanned a city on the way down. We’re headed there,” Windsaber replied.
“What? Wouldn’t it make more sense to find the rest of the ship? We might find fuel and escape shuttles. And more important, we might find the comm room,” Waverunner argued.
“We are going to the city. The decision has been made and won’t be changed. Am I making myself clear?” Windsaber asked.
“I … yes, of course,” Waverunner replied, looking chastised.
“And Waverunner,” Windsaber said as the elder was turning away, “don’t make me rethink our arrangement. You would not like the results.”
Waverunner simply nodded and moved away.
For a long time, the assembled were silent, listening to the wind in the trees and the strange, alien noises or organic creatures as they moved through the woods. It was eerie, and it was frightening. Everyone seemed on edge, jumping at the slightest noise. From the other side of the camp, Arclight could hear engines begin to rev with fear, and cooling systems begin to turn on.
Suddenly there was a commotion in the woods. The sound of overclocking engines and running feet. The Decepticons stood in formation, weapons raised, prepared for battle with military precision.
The battle was unneeded, however. The three mechs sent off for wood fell out of the forest at a run. They looked about the assembled wildly before dropping the collected wood in the middle of the clearing.
“There’s something out there!” a young blue mech said.
“Yes, the woods and the organic beings that inhabit it,” Windsaber said, sounding bored.
“No, not that!” a yellow femme argued. “There’s something evil out there! It didn’t want us to take the wood.”
“I heard the trees scream at us,” a small orange mech said in a tiny voice.
“Did you now?” Strobe asked. Then shaking his head he added, “And that would be why you all need to be governed. You’re all a bunch of sparklets completely incapable of ruling yourselves because you’re too afraid of the dark. Are you going to tell me next that you saw the shifter mech hiding under your berth?”
“I’m not making it up,” the orange mech said quietly. “I know what I heard and it was real. There’s something dangerous out there.”
“No, there’s something dangerous in here. And that’d be us,” Strobe growled, motioning to the Decepticons. “Now enough with this talk of monsters! Get the fire going or I’ll show you exactly who it is that you need to fear!”
The three neutrals stood stock still for a moment before rushing to recollect the wood and began to work to light the fire.
Arclight watched this all angrily. Cobalt noticed her look.
“You didn’t think that they were actually going to fight back, did you?” Cobalt asked in a whisper.
“I had hoped they might,” Arclight replied.
Cobalt only snorted indelicately.
“Neutrals don’t fight,” he said. “They let others do the work for them and then they gather the rewards of the resulting leadership. Unless the Decepticons win. In that case, they simply whine about the injustice of their pathetic little lives.”
“You underestimate them,” Arclight said.
“Do I? Look around you. Do these look like people who are willing to fight for their freedom? No. Neutrals are all like. They will never defend themselves.”
“That’s a generalization. I’ll fight for what I believe in, and I’m a Neutral,” Arclight replied archly.
“No you’re not,” Cobalt said. “You pretend to be unaligned, but when it comes down to it, you’re an Autobot. You just haven’t been forced to realize it yet.”
“You don’t know me. No matter how much you pretend. You don’t know me at all,” Arclight said as she stood to move back among the colonists.
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that,” Cobalt said quietly. “Keep telling yourself and you might actually manage to delude yourself into believing it.”
Arclight tried her best to ignore his words, but slowly they started to work their way into her processor. She had sworn to remain impartial in the war. As a medic she could not deny treatment to someone based on their faction. If it came to it, she would repair any of these Decepticons as quickly as she would anyone else. They were pretty words, but she was not convincing herself. These Decepticons were monsters, but were they really any worse than Cobalt? Her hand moved up to stroke the dents on her throat where Cobalt had grabbed her. She had repaired the Autobot. Would she really do the same for Strobe? After all, she had made no attempt to save Killzone.
Her introspection was interrupted by a crash and a scream from out in the woods. Silence descended on the group and then all hell broke loose as the sound of laser fire filled the air.
The Decepticons all moved as one, creating a triangle perimeter, weapons pointed at the woods. The Neutrals huddled together in fear staring out into the dark, petrified of whatever was out there.
The noise ended as quickly as it had started and the forest was plunged into a silence far deeper than it had been before. Even the organic creatures were quiet, and it was as if the whole of the world was holding it’s breath.
“Strobe! Updraft! I want you both to make a tour of the perimeter. Make sure there’s nothing out there,” Windsaber ordered.
“Nothing out there?!” Twostrike asked, a hysterical note creeping into his voice. “We just heard something out there! Those are probably our brothers! You need to find them!”
“No,” Windsabre said calmly, “the only thing that I need to do is defend this position. If there are other Neutrals out there then they’re on their own.”
“Yeah, but-” Twostrike began.
“There will be no argument from you,” Windsaber interrupted. “Unless, you’re telling me that you’d like to tour the extended perimeter?”
“I … no, sir,” Twostrike said, dropping his head in shame.
“I thought not,” Windsaber said before turning to Strobe and Updraft. “Take standard formation. Report back here if you find anything.”
“Aye, Sir!” they replied.
The two Decepticons turned and walked out into the woods, leaving Windsaber to defend the camp.
Strobe walked ahead of Updraft, his body stiff, his senses alert. They had completed two thirds of a circuit around the perimeter of the camp and had come across nothing. If the gunplay had indeed happened, it wasn’t from anywhere close to the camp.
“Do you think that the neutrals were telling the truth?” Updraft asked as they walked. “Do you really think that they saw something out here?”
Strobe stopped for a moment, turning back to look at Updraft, a look of surprise and disgust on his face.
“Are you really asking that question?” he asked as he continued to walk, “I mean, are you seriously considering the possibility that there’s a monster in the woods?”
“Well, no. Not monsters,” Updraft replied hesitantly. “But maybe this world isn’t as uninhabited as we figured.”
“It’s uninhabited. We didn’t pick up any life signs worth squat,” Strobe replied. “There was just the organic life, and that hardly matters.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Updraft said. He still sounded unconvinced, but he wasn’t about to continue the discussion. Instead he turned to his internal sensors. “We’re just about done the perimeter. Do we head back or should we make another run a bit further out?”
“We’ll just go back. There’s no point in straining ourselves over something that isn’t there,” Strobe replied. “The acoustics on this world are strange and those sounds could have come from anywhere. It wouldn’t surprise me if we were hearing something from many miles away.”
“Well, you’re the comm officer. I guess you’d know,” Updraft replied. “That’s it. We’re back where we started.”
“Good. I want to get back to where there’re people, even if they’re Neutral trash,” Strobe said. “This whole place creeps me out.”
“They’re not all trash,” Updraft argued. “Some of them have real potential.”
“Oh, like who? Twostrike? He was a good Decepticon once, but then he lost his nerve. He’s trash,” Strobe snorted.
“He was a Decepticon?” Updraft asked.
“I never knew him, but I sure as slag knew of him,” Strobe said angrily. “He cut and run during the battle of Sigma Bridge. He had forty infantry units relying on him for cover fire and he took off. They were decimated by a Guardian Robot.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that,” Updraft said softly.
“You’re too new. It’s hardly surprising,” Strobe replied. “Just remember, the Neutrals are that way for a reason. Either they can’t fight or they won’t. Either way, mechs like Twostrike are of no use to us.”
“I guess so. The thing is, I wasn’t thinking about him,” Updraft hedged.
“Oh, ho! You meant that medic femme! You’re sweet on her, are you?” Strobe laughed. “Yeah, I guess she is a fine specimen. Pit knows I sure wouldn’t mind stroking that, but she’s just a Neutral like the rest.”
“You’re disgusting,” Updraft said.
“Yeah, I am. But admit it, you want to get some ‘face time with her too,” Strobe said with a wicked snicker.
Updraft’s optics darkened to an embarrassed crimson. He shut his mouth, refusing to rise to Strobe’s bait. It was true that she was well put together, but there was more to it than that. She carried herself well. She had a fire in her that was entrancing. Of course that same fire would probably get him seriously hurt if he tried anything. He had never been much of a fighter, and he’d heard stories about what medics were capable of. He didn’t want to be on the receiving end on her wrath.
“Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?” Strobe asked, interrupting Updraft’s thoughts.
“Of course I’m sure. I’m a pilot. I never get lost.”
“Well, I think you got us lost. I don’t remember the trees being this close together before,” Strobe shot back.
“I’ll admit that things look a bit different, but I’m telling you, we’re headed on a direct path back to the camp!” Updraft argued.
Strobe turned on Updraft, his hands raised to shove the pilot violently, when screams and laser fire tore through the night.
“That came from the camp!” Updraft gasped.
He shoved past Strobe and ran in the direction he knew the camp was, the black and tan close on his trail. Together, heedless of the noise they were making, they crashed through the forest desperate to get to the battle they could still hear.
Suddenly, the night fell silent as a tomb, and the two Decepticons fell out of the forest and into a clearing. They looked about wildly, but there was no sign that the others had ever been here. Instead, right in the middle of the clearing where the fire should have been, stood a tall black menhir, intricately carved with ancient Cybertronian symbols.
“You did get us lost!” Strobe yelled accusingly.
“I did not! The camp is beyond this clearing,” Updraft replied as he approached the giant stone.
“You did too! We never passed through a clearing! You got us lost! In this slag-pit forest!”
Updraft ignored Strobe’s tirade, focusing instead on the menhir. It looked like any other giant stone that had been dragged out of the dirt, but the carvings on it were beautiful. Someone had taken a lot of time and effort to make this. It made no sense that it had been left in the middle of a forest like this. He walked around it slowly, taking in the writing, trying unsuccessfully to translate it. He reached the other side and saw something that made his fuel run cold.
Scrawled in mech fluid across the back of the stone were words written in a more modern Cybertronian slang. These he could translate without any difficulty.
“Beware the night. Watch the woods. Trust no one,” Updraft whispered as he read the words.
